Danbury girls soccer falls to Trumbull in Class LL tourney

Published 1:00 am, Sunday, November 14, 2004

TRUMBULL - Losing by a single goal is one of the toughest things to endure for any soccer team.

Losing 1-0 to Trumbull in sudden-death overtime in Saturday night's CIAC Class LL quarterfinal was almost too much to endure for the Danbury High girls soccer squad.
In the end, the Hatters dealt with the pain in almost the same way. They stood on Trumbull's bitterly cold field almost too stunned to move.
For 80 minutes, Danbury clawed and fought its way to a scoreless tie. But just 1:50 into the extra period, it abruptly ended on a goal from Trumbull's
Kristen Kus
.
After Kus scored, the Danbury players, and their coaches argued with the officials, claiming that Hatter goalie

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Sonya Perkins
had the ball knocked out of her hands by a Trumbull player, which would have rendered the goal illegal. But The referee ruled that the goal was good, sending the 11th-seeded Eagles to Tuesday's semifinal.
"It's very tough to lose this way," Danbury coach

John Benitez
said. "But at the same time, we were forced to defend for the last 45 minutes of the game. It's just really tough to win games when all you do is defend."
Even though the season ended for the Hatters on Saturday, they have nothing to be ashamed about. Two weeks ago, they ended the regular season by missing out on the FCIAC tournament, and limping into the state tournament. But the No. 20 Hatters went on a postseason run. They defeated Southington 1-0 on Tuesday, and on Thursday they pulled arguably the biggest upset of the tournament, beating defending champion Cheshire.
For Danbury to pull a third consecutive upset victory, they needed to both play flawlessly, and receive good fortune. While they played well, luck proved it wasn't with the Hatters when leading scorer

Alicia Ehrhard
rolled her ankle in the first half. She received a tape job from the trainers, and tried to return to action in the second half, but it wasn't to be. Ehrhard never reentered the game.
Without the all-state junior forward, the Hatters couldn't muster a single shot on goal in the second half. In response, they played defensively, hoping to extend the game into penalty kicks where they could try to win it.
"Coach told us that one day we were going to have to play without her," Perkins said. "She's carried the team for so long, I don't think we knew how to play without her. It's unfortunate that it all ended up this way. I thought that I was interfered with, but the referees didn't call it. I thought it was obvious. They say that you play your hardest so there are no regrets, but we have five seniors who will never play for us again. That's tough."
Perkins was the reason the game was extended into an extra session. Trumbull took 17 shots for the game and Perkins was there to rebuff almost all of them.
"We knew that we had to stay poised," Kus said. "We had so many shots, we dominated the game for so long. We thought that we had to get a shot in. I saw the keeper (Perkins), bobble the ball. The ball came out, and I was able to knock it in. I'm just so happy right now."
The Hatters had a chance to score in the first minute of the game, but Ehrhard's shot hit the post and bounded away. They took just one more shot on goal after that.